What is something you have done with your game character that you are the proudest of?

I struggled with this question. Most of my characters deal with self loathing or related issues, so thinking of something that I would be proud of them doing is a little awkward.

If we want to go for something that I’m proud of because of the amount of joy it bought others, let’s talk about Annette. Annette was a Driver in an Apocalypse World game, described by Kate as “Pinkie Pie after the end of the world.” Most people in the apocalypse are troubled in some form or another, but Annette made it a point to try to be genuinely happy about life. She was from Casa Bonita, a mythical land of endless sopapillas that may or may not have existed, and friend to everyone. Not the most book smart or even street smart character, but she had quirky intuition that helped her get by.

After a particularly intense confrontation with an NPC at her garage, Annette opened her mind to the psychic maelstrom to try to make sense of the political tensions surrounding her. Again, not book smart, but she wanted to get a feel for what was happening and why it included her. In her window sill, she saw a vision: a fly caught in a spiderweb, the spider closing in for the kill, and a bee freely flying past on the other side of the glass. The complex metaphor presented here was way beyond Annette’s reach.

She looked for Oz, her closest friend. When she finds them, she explains what she saw and asked “Am I the fly, the spider or the bee? Or the web? OR THE WINDOW SILL?!” Oz was of no help, being a Touchstone who spoke complex thoughts only through violence.

Annette ended up recruiting the help of former cultists to make sense of the vision. They had been asked by the party’s Operator to do mundane tasks, such as cutting long lengths of wood into shorter ones. They jumped at the change to pull apart the vision and debate its meaning. It gave their lives direction again.

The next time another PC found Annette, she was drawing out what her vision looked like in the dirt with the help of these former cultists and directing them in discussions about symbolism and potential meanings. I believe she was dragged away to help with some sort of battle or something, but the jumpcut to an amateur philosophy class in the town square delighted my table.